Sunday, January 07, 2007

Well, we had been interested to see if Tigana's love of the stage would survive 9 performances of the same play, but she came through as enthusiastic as ever. Indeed, she was a little depressed it was over.

Most interesting point for Tigana was a performance we weren't at, where one of the lead actors fell ill and had to be replaced at the last second...Jeremy, who plays the head bed bug, stepped in to the title role, and the stage manager stepped in as head bed bug... but there were apparently a couple of spots where in the ensuing confusion, that the villain ended up playing off bed bug Tigana rather than the stage manager, who was still running the lights and sound cues.... Friends of ours in the audience later told us, "I had no idea from what you'd said that Tigana had such a major role." News to us too!

But the whole experience was great for Tigana...second time in front of a paying audience, but first time for an actual "run", of which she was in 9 performances; first time to see the sort of dedication it takes to be an actor, when the lead showed up to play Ned, but was then taken straight to hospital instead; first time to see that the show must go on, even if an actor can't be there; first time seeing the improve 'winging it' that makes acting such a seat of the pants profession and such an adrenaline rush. And seeing the synergism of that cast (many of whom work in the same improve group)....

We caught the last 15 minutes of the performance with the missing actor, and knew the play well enough to know when the fill-ins missed a cue, or misspoke a line or whatever, but the energy was so high, the ad libs so great, it just didn't matter -- I'm sure no one in the audience noticed, and I thought it a great performance.

I was also amazed that for each of the four performances we did attend (including first and last of the run), Kasia was enthralled throughout. This is a testament to both the writing and the acting, since our Kasia is sufficiently burnt out on TV that not a lot keeps her attention.... Only problem was now she wants to be a bed bug too!

Oh, and Tigana got to keep her costume after the play, so I put it on a life-sized robot Tigana made last year, and stuck it under her (bunk style) bed... I'm keen to see how long before she notices that her bed has bed bugs....